2013: a calculated
performance
It’s nice to think you’re wonderful, but can
you prove it? Dreamers soar like gas balloons on their good feelings, but I, as
the Mercenary Pen, prefer more pedestrian, “can I pick it up with tweezers”
measures of my performance.
I track several variables that tell me how I
am doing from day to day, year to year. I began tracking my hours in May 2005,
and can report to within five minutes a year how little, er, much, I’ve worked ever
since. I also track my annual income (a tax requirement
anyway) and the number of articles for which I’ve collected my beans each year
(as opposed to the number worked on, as there are always projects and payments
that straddle the Dec/Jan dateline).
I shan’t
confess any absolute numbers, like where the decimal point has to sit in order
to claim an eight-figure income, but here are some relational numbers – the
ones that tell me how I am competing with my other annual selves:
I worked 4.3% more hours in 2013 than in
2012. I’m pleased, as one of last year’s goals was to top my 2012 hours. I
could’ve sworn I did less, but, surprise! I was pleased to see that my hourly income, a fair measure of productivity, held steady.
I don’t closely track how long it takes to write an article. I sometimes keep a rough tally in my head as I plod along, but for complicated pieces it’s an inky fog - about as easy as counting the potholes on 13 miles of dirt road.
Last year I also began separately tracking how much time I was throwing at my multi-volume freelance project, my blog, twitter and networking. I have no idea how many hours I invested in the previous eight years in that freelance magnum opus, but as the natives say, “One two three many.” These non-paying, future-riches hours amounted to 10.9% of the year’s total.
I don’t closely track how long it takes to write an article. I sometimes keep a rough tally in my head as I plod along, but for complicated pieces it’s an inky fog - about as easy as counting the potholes on 13 miles of dirt road.
Last year I also began separately tracking how much time I was throwing at my multi-volume freelance project, my blog, twitter and networking. I have no idea how many hours I invested in the previous eight years in that freelance magnum opus, but as the natives say, “One two three many.” These non-paying, future-riches hours amounted to 10.9% of the year’s total.
With that information, I roughly estimated how long it will take to complete my freelance project: scary movie!
On the caviar end, as I finish each volume, my record keeping will let me
calculate and recalculate my skyrocketing hourly wage (even Mercenary Pens like
to blow the odd bubble) as the sales figures pour in.
I
spent [censored] hours last year writing seven blog posts, a galaxy short of
the 52 I had vowed to write. But getting the Mercenary Pen to write a blog is roughly
as realistic as expecting an anarchist to show up at the monthly club meeting.
I
invested 19 amusing hours in networking, not yet nearly enough, judging from
the size of the clay jug I still inhabit, but a novel beginning.
Self-deception can be a good thing, like if
your air tank is nearly empty and your spaceship is way over there, or if cafe Gitanes
and seagull poop on your beret from Henri Henri feels more productive than slogging it out at a desk.
But if you want to succeed, however you decide to define that, collecting a few
easy numbers will keep you on the road to where you think you’re going.
-30-
Copyright © Carroll McCormick 2014
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